


Merry the Fool

by comicgeekery



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: ADVENTURE!, AU, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Slightly smarter characters, changed up timelines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 00:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11242122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicgeekery/pseuds/comicgeekery
Summary: An alternative take on Gravity Falls where Ford is a bit more suspicious of Bill and writes to Stan sooner. Unfortunately for them, this is also a world where Bill is very good at being patient and subtle. Now the kids are at the Mystery Shack for the summer, Stan and Ford are straining to be nice to each other, and there's a new burst of magical mayhem everyday. It's the perfect time for Bill to make his move and boy will he laugh when he does it.Oh, also, I guess Ford's found love? Weird. Hope that doesn't complicate anything.





	Merry the Fool

_Prologue_

_Nothing made sense after Fiddleford came out of the portal. He was so scared. Worse, he was traumatized. It didn’t fit in the slightest. Bill had described the world they would find. It might be strange to human eyes, but nothing that would threaten to destroy a mind. Something was very, very wrong._

_Ford hadn’t felt this alone in years. Out of his two closest friends, one was barely lucid and the other might be telling him some very dangerous lies. What was he supposed to do? This portal was supposed to be his greatest achievement! He couldn’t have that torn away from him! He couldn’t take having his greatest dreams in his reach and then have them all torn away through a heartless betrayal. Not again._

_So for several days Ford slept as little as possible. He was paralyzed with indecision. He wanted to trust Bill, but could he really?_

_Finally, sleep deprived and desperate, Ford did the last thing he ever expected to do. He wrote to his brother and asked for help._

**Chapter One**

The summer was looking to be a good one. It was the Mystery Shack’s third year in business and for the first time Stan really felt like he knew what he was doing. He’d paid for some advertisements (well, mostly he’d put up some signs illegally up and down the highway). He had some hired help who didn’t mind getting paid in envelopes of cash. Best of all, he’d managed to get his hands on a nice set of wax figures that he just knew would pull in the crowds. 

In the Shack’s first year, Stan had finished the tourist season still in debt from setting the damn business up. Last year he’d just managed to break even. But this year was going to be the one where Stan Pines would really start earning some dough!

(That was the mantra he told himself and everyone around him everyday. You couldn’t even hear the nervous edge to it until he was whispering it to himself at night.)

If Stan was nervous though, he was glad to something to distract him. A good case of the day-to-day nervous to replace the old “Oh god, my whole life is a sham and I’ll fail at everything I ever try!” 

Right. None of that.

The Shack was closed for the day. Soos and Wendy had gone home. Stan kept himself busy and cleaned up a bit. He swept a bit, rearranged some merch, and put a few of the wax figures in rude poses. (They were surprisingly bendy for being made of wax.)

Stan even hummed a bit while he worked. The kids were coming up to spend the summer tomorrow! He hadn’t seen Dipper and Mabel since they were born. Normally he wasn’t too fond of kids, but even as gruff as he was Stan had to admit he had a soft spot for twins. He hoped they liked him, hoped they thought he was a cool sort of uncle. He already had plans to let them pick out some stuff from the gift shop and light a bunch of probably (definitely) illegal fireworks at some point. 

And hey, with a whole summer ahead of them Stan was bound to get some free labor out of the little squirts! Nothing says bonding like forced work at a family business! Stan had learned that plenty of times back at the pawn shop. Sure, cleaning shelves and moving stock had been a pain when he was a kid, but it was never that bad when he was with….

Suddenly his stomach growled. Loudly. Stan glanced at the clock. For crying out loud! Dinner was supposed to be two hours ago! Grumbling, Stan marched over to the vending machine at the back of the store. There was a painting hanging next to it. Stan pulled the painting aside to get at the intercom he’d installed behind it and stabbed his finger at the button.

“Sixer! Where the hell are ya? I’m starving up here and it’s your turn to cook! And don’t think you’re gonna get away with ordering another pizza either!”

There was no response. Stan wasn’t surprised. If Ford was this late for dinner it meant he was lost in one of his experiments again. It happened pretty easily. A few years ago Stan might have tip-toed away and found something to microwave. Now he had the confidence to be a bit more of a brother about things. 

He went behind the counter of the gift shop, put in some earplugs, and grabbed a can. Then he went back to the intercom and blew the air-horn right into it. There. If _that_ didn’t get Sixer’s attention then he was flat-out dead to the world.

Sure enough, a few seconds later Stan heard footsteps pounding up from the basement. The vending machine swung aside and Ford stared at him, fuming. “What the hell, Stanley?! I was working with some very delicate chemicals down there. I spilled a beaker and it ate through my desk!” 

Stan rolled his eyes. “Well at least something got to eat around here. It’s your night for dinner, remember? You were the one who said we got no excuses.”

“Yes, but I…”

“No. Excuses.” 

Ford slumped and let out a groan. “Fine! I’ll make us some grilled cheese sandwiches or something. But then I really need to get back to work.”

“Yup. If by back to work you mean helping me.”

“....Helping you with what? I don’t help with ‘the Shack’, Stanley. You know I won’t have anything to do with the joke you’re turning my field into.”

Like Ford hadn’t mentioned _that_ a million times in the last few years. Stan snorted. “You completely forgot, didn’t you?”

In the kitchen Ford kept himself busy for a full minute gathering ingredients and getting out plates before he finally gave in. “Alright, what did I forget?”

“The kids! They’re coming tomorrow! You said you’d help me finish getting their room together tonight.”

It wasn’t hard to read Ford’s expressions once he recalled that Mabel and Dipper were on their way. Annoyance, concern, and (Stan hoped) just a little bit of happiness. Ford had been away at a conference when the twins were born. He’d never even met them. In fact Ford was pretty nervous about the idea of having two children running around the house for three months, probably getting into all sorts of trouble and interrupting his work. Still, Stan knew that all his lectures about family meant _something_ to Ford. Why else would he have said yes to the kids coming in the first place. 

“Ah yes,” Ford said with a small smile. “I suppose it will be nice to have another set of twins in the house for a time. Are you planning to do a marketing campaign around it? The mirrored wonders or something?” He pressed the spatula into the grilled cheese he was cooking then without warning he flung the sandwich in Stan’s direction.

Stan had to dive for it, but he caught it without breaking a sweat. “Yeah right. No one pays money to see fraternal twins. Unless, of course, you’re finally gonna do a show with me?” Stan did a quick two-step and waggled his eyebrows. 

“Yeah right,” Ford smirked. “Maybe when you can up with some choreography more complicated than what a chimp can do.”

Stan smirked right back. “Maybe I would if you actually knew a thing about dancing!” 

The joking continued straight through dinner and built up to a pillow fight by the time they were putting Mabel and Dipper’s room together. It almost felt natural now, like they were happy brothers with no real complaints. Looking at them, no one would guess that they both had nightmares every night, that they were scared of the dark and the cold, and that neither of them said a word to the other without thinking about it very carefully. 

There was a tension that never really went away. Still, Stan was at least grateful it had become an easier burden to bear. And it was better than before. Geez, _anything_ was better than before.

It was a minor miracle when Ford went to bed when the children’s room was ready instead of getting back to work. That hardly ever happened. Stan chose to take it as a good sign. Things were going well with Ford. The Mystery Shack was ready for business. The kids would be there tomorrow. This was going to be the best summer ever!

Stan grinned to himself.

In the attic’s triangular window, a single eye watched.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I hope you've enjoyed the story so far. In case it isn't clear, I wanted to explain what I've done with the timeline. 
> 
> 1\. Stan and Ford are in their early thirties and are now Mable and Dippers uncles, rather than grunkles.  
> 2\. The Mystery Shack only opened a few years ago.  
> 3\. No one was thrown through the portal, aside from Fiddleford's brief glimpse of the other side.  
> 4\. Dipper and Mable are still twelve, but they still haven't really had the chance to meet their mysterious uncles.
> 
> That's about it. Please let me know if you have any questions and feel free to contact me on tumblr under comicgeekery. Thank you all so much for reading!


End file.
